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Big Thunder Mountain Railroad
'Big Thunder Mountain Railroad '(Big Thunder Mountain or simply Thunder Mountain for short) is a roller coaster attraction at Disneyland in Anaheim, California, opened 1979; Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, opened 1980; Tokyo Disneyland in Uryasu, Chiba, Japan, opened 1987; and at Disneyland Resort Paris' Disneyland Park in Marne-la-Vallee, France, opened 1992. A similar attraction opened at Hong Kong Disneyland in 2012 in a land called Grizzly Gulch. Theme Big Thunder Mountain Railroad is set in the American Southwest and follows the same general runaway train experience, though with varying back-stories and geological structure. During the Gold Rush in the late 1800s, gold was discovered in Big Thunder Mountain and boomtowns sprung up nearby accordingly such as Rainbow Ridge (Disneyland), Tumbleweed and Dry Gulch (Magic Kingdom) and Thunder Mesa (Disneyland Paris). A Mine Train system was established to transport the ore, but what the settlers didn't count on was that Big Thunder was sacred round for local Indian tribes. The spirit of Big Thunder was not pleased with the gold being removed from the mountain and the towns and mining company suffered accidents from flooding (Magic Kingdom) and earthquakes (Disneyland, Disneyland Paris). The trains themselves began operating on their own, possessed by mischievous spirits. Though the towns promptly became abandoned, adventurous visitors still arrived to ride the haunted trains. My Disney Experience Official Description Streak through a haunted gold mining town aboard a rollicking runaway mine train. Attraction Plot *Dash in and out of desert caverns and rumble through a haunted mine aboard a speeding train. *Amid rugged bedrock and desert cactus, venture inside a nearly 200-foot mountain to the Big Thunder Mining Company, established in the early days of America's Gold Rush. Traipse down into an abandoned mine shaft and discover a mysterious 5-car locomotive waiting to take you on a journey inside an abandoned shaft. *Hurl forward into the darkness of the tunnel as the train's wheels chug back and forth across a rickety track. Swoop around sharp turns and dip and drop into canyons and caves, darting through the ghost town of Tumbleweed. *Peel under a booming waterfall, past rock formations, and dodge a rumbling boulder from an inexplicable landslide. Along your adventure, glimpse the remnants of a flash flood and behold a bevy of local critters, including bats, opossum and a goat, before hastily making your way back to the safety of the railroad station. *Legend has it that a supernatural force dwells within the mountain. When gold was first discovered in the 1850s, a mining company was established. But soon, eerie things began to occur. Miners heard ghostly sounds, cave-ins became frequent and equipment mysteriously failed. Trains would take off and race through the mine and around the mountain driverless. Word got out that the mine was haunted and Big Thunder became another ghost town. *Years later, when eyewitness accounts had faded into folklore, new prospectors resurrected the Mining Company and began blasting into the spooky mountain once again. But as the new settlers became aware, some legends turn out to be true. __FORCETOC__ Category:Disneyland Category:Magic Kingdom Category:Tokyo Disneyland Category:Disneyland Park (Paris) Category:Disneyland Attractions Category:Magic Kingdom Attractions Category:Tokyo Disneyland Attractions Category:Disneyland Paris Attractions Category:Frontierland Category:Westernland